Canny Catalans

Matthew Parris writes for The Times on a regular basis and is a commentator whose thoughts I enjoy - because while I would say he is a natural Conservative supporter - he is very funny, not overly partisan or tribal and is also perfectly capable of criticising his 'own side'.

So I was surprised to read his piece on the prospects of independence for Catalonia the other day - because the solution to the problem from Matthew's point of view - is a two question referendum (or as he calls it three questions) - as opposed to a straight Yes or No to Catalonia becoming fully independent from Spain.

Here's an extract of what Matthew had to say:

"There is a way to avoid this cruel gamble. Two men have it in their power, if they can each take the pain of a partial climbdown, to end the impasse. One is Artur Mas, the President of Catalonia’s government and a political moderate. The other is Mr Rajoy, also from the moderate part of his party. He has undertaken to thwart a referendum, should concede one and should undertake to respect its conclusions.

Mr Mas, who has (only latterly) pushed for full independence, should concede a three-choice referendum. Voters would order by preference (1) status quo; (2) greater autonomy (“devo-max”); or (3) full independence. If none received an absolute majority, second preferences would be counted."

Now this is interesting because a two (or three) question referendum is exactly what many people in Scotland were calling for - before all the major political parties got together and decided that Scottish voters would be confused by having more than one question on the ballot box.

Which is nonsense of course - since voters are clearly able to hold more than one thought in their head at the same time - and second preferences would only be counted, if none of the available options received an absolute majority first time around.